


Bail

by Yitzock



Category: The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (TV)
Genre: Because I love them in both platonic and romantic stories I just love their relatioship, Cooking, F/F, Female Friendship, Friendship, Friendship/Love, Gay Bar, Gay dancing, Gen, Homophobia, Homophobic Language, Hurt/Comfort, I mean you could read as much romantic stuff as you want into this I'm leaving it open to you, In addition to the fact that there are F/F couples in this story, Lesbian Bar, Period-Typical Homophobia, Police Brutality, That's why I tagged it both Gen and F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-24
Updated: 2020-10-24
Packaged: 2021-03-09 06:48:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,159
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27179473
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yitzock/pseuds/Yitzock
Summary: Susie gets arrested at a lesbian club and Midge bails her out of jail. To abate Midge's worry, Susie explains what happened.
Relationships: Miriam "Midge" Maisel & Susie Myerson
Comments: 4
Kudos: 15





	Bail

**Author's Note:**

> I'm so glad to finally be able to post this, after working on it off and on since January. I was inspired to write this after watching the documentary Before Stonewall and reading the book Stone Butch Blues (as well as doing a bit of research online about lesbian bars in the 50s). I hope you enjoy it!

Miriam groggily got out of bed and made her breakfast, as she always did, before helping the kids get ready for school, like she always did. And when she had done that she went across the street to the newspaper stand to pick up the morning paper, which she brought back to her apartment to read while she finished her – now cold – morning coffee. She skimmed the headlines and the pictures, read some of the articles, but in truth she was still somewhat in a fog, still not completely awake.

That was, until she thought she saw someone familiar in a picture accompanying one of the small articles a few pages into the newspaper. She looked away, then looked again, closely this time, to make sure she had not been wrong. 

She wasn’t wrong. She read the article as quickly as she could, absorbing all the information she could about the story it was telling, trying to understand what it all meant. When she was finished, she grabbed her coat and hat and stormed out of the building as quickly as she could, hailed a cab, and headed on her way.

She tapped her foot anxiously as she sat in the back seat of the taxi. The seemed farther away than she remembered. Every second felt like an eternity. When they finally arrive, she hastily got out some cash for the driver, not bothering to wait for change. She flew out of the cab and into the station.

One inside, she wasted no time walking up to the officer on duty.

“I’m here to pick up Susie Myerson,” she said, trying to seem confident. Even though she had been to this place multiple times before, it never failed to make her feel a little uneasy, a little more on guard than she typically was. She supposed it was meant to be that way, but all the same it was not a nice feeling.

“Who?” the officer asked.

“Susie Myerson,” Miriam repeated, a little louder than the first time. The blank look on the officer’s face remained unchanged. Miriam had wanted this not to be true, but the picture in the paper had suggested it had to be, so she tried another approach. Miriam held her hand up beside her, just below her chin. “She’s about this tall, angry, dark hair, hat, a little bit stout, wears pants.”

The officer’s face finally showed some recognition.

“Oh, one of the bulldaggers we picked up last night.”

Miriam had not heard that word before, but from the sound of it, it wasn’t good.

“No charges,” he explained, before gesturing that he needed the bail money. Miriam counted it out carefully and then handed it to the officer. “Just a few minutes, please.” The officer indicated to the man next to him to go fetch Susie, though they still weren’t referring to her by her name despite the fact that Miriam had said it twice.

Miriam leaned against the wall as she waited. Each minute felt like an eternity and she tapped her shoe heel anxiously against the floor.

Finally, Susie appeared in the corridor. She carried her blazer, rumpled, over one arm. Her hair was disheveled and a bruise was starting to form under her left eye. When she got closer and put on her cap, it appeared that one side of the brim was scuffed.

But it wasn’t just these details that worried Miriam. It was the way Susie was walking. Her usual confident air had been replaced by a sluggish stride and she looked at the floor as she walked. It was as if all the life had been sucked out of her.

“Miriam?” she said quietly, when she looked up, still sounding surprised despite being exhausted. “How did you know I was here?”

“I’ll tell you later,” she said simply. “Come on. I’m taking you home.”

Miriam helped Susie into her jacket and then put an arm around her shoulders. Together, they walked back out to the street, where Miriam’s cab was waiting. Miriam gave the driver the address to her apartment.

“I want to go _home_ ,” Susie said.

“Of course,” Miriam said simply. She told the driver to go to the address of Susie’s apartment and they were on their way.

Susie, seeming to no longer have the strength to hold herself upright, leaned over and rested her head on Miriam’s shoulder, letting out a sigh. Miriam wrapped her arm around Susie, gently rubbing up and down on her arm for the whole ride, reassuring Susie that she was there.

* * *

Susie realized that she must have fallen asleep – god knows she hadn’t slept all night – because all of a sudden Miriam was gently tapping her on the shoulder, telling her they could get out of the cab, now.

Susie let Miriam drag her out of the taxi, into the building, and down the stairs to her basement room. Susie fumbled for her key to unlock the door. Her mind flashed back to the police officer pulling on the chain during the confrontation, and she was grateful it had been strong enough not to snap – his grip felt strong enough, as implausible as it would otherwise seem – and that nobody had stolen it from her.

“Home sweet home,” Miriam said, though not with the usual cheerfulness that often accompanied the phrase.

“Thanks, Miriam,” Susie said, before collapsing in her chair. She was glad to come back to a quiet apartment after this. God rest Jackie’s soul, wherever he was, but she did not need him seeing her after what had happened. “I guess you probably have somewhere else to be, now.”

“Nope,” Miriam replied immediately. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“Really, I’m fine by myself,” Susie said. “You don’t need to hang around. You’re not _my_ manager.”

“No, but I _am_ your friend,” Miriam explained, as if it were supposed to be obvious. “And you need a friend right now. “

Susie opened her mouth to say something, but Miriam cut her off.

“It’s not negotiable,” she added.

Miriam was stubborn in her own way, but that was why Susie liked her.

“Fine,” Susie said, already feeling a little better despite what she had just said. “But how did you know where I was, anyway? I never told the officers my name. They tried to find ID, but I wasn’t carrying any.” Her mind flashed back to the police officers’ probing hands. She shook her head to try to clear her mind of the memory.

In response to Susie’s question, Miriam reached into her purse and pulled out the morning newspaper. She unfolded it and handed it to Susie.

It was already open to one of the inside pages, where there was an article about the raid on the club the night before. The photo accompanying the article was a bit grainy, but it was clear enough to make out the police officers’ forms. One of them was leading a drag queen into the paddy wagon. Another cop, close by, was leading Susie in the same direction, though with considerably more resistance.

“Shit,” Susie murmured when she saw how clearly she was depicted in the photograph, despite the darkness. “It’s bad enough that all of this happened; I don’t need it in the papers.”

“What were you doing in a place like that, anyway?” Miriam asked, seeming confused by what was going on.

“Hey, just be glad my name isn’t printed on this list,” Susie replied defensively. “This is pretty bad, but at least there’s no written confirmation that it’s me in here. If anyone brings it up, maybe I can pass it off as someone who just looks like me in the low lighting.”

Susie looked up at Miriam. Miriam looked back at her like she was not satisfied with her answer, still expecting something.

“Look, I get it, it was a risky thing for me to do as your manager and I won’t let it happen again. So, what’s that look for?”

“That’s not why I’m asking, Susie,” Miriam explained in exasperation. “I just want to know why you were spending time somewhere that’s clearly dangerous.”

“How do you know if it was dangerous if you weren’t there? Huh?”

“There were police! Obviously, there must have been something going on there if there were police!”

“Right, like when you got arrested during your comedy set.”

“That was different!”

“So you’ve got a monopoly on the police arresting you for no good reason?”

“I didn’t mean it like that.”

“Well, too bad, that’s what you just said.”

Miriam huffed, looking a little frustrated by the conversation.

 _You and me both, sister,_ Susie thought. 

“The article says that bar had mob connections,” Miriam finally said.

“Apparently a lot of places like that do,” Susie said. “But there wasn’t anything so bad going on. Not out in the open, anyway.”

“What do you mean, ‘places like that?’”

Susie sighed again, trying to carefully select the words she would use next. Miriam could be dense now and then, and this seemed to be one of those times.

“Does this have something to do with that word the police officer called you?” Miriam asked.

“What word?” Susie asked, but as soon as she asked she knew what it was going to be.

“I…I don’t think I should say it,” Miriam said, lowering her voice to almost a whisper. “It sounded bad.”

_“Hey, let go of me!”_

_“Shut up, bulldagger!”_

“Bulldagger?” Susie asked, her own mouth feeling uncomfortable as it formed the syllables.

“Yes,” Miriam confirmed quietly. “What does it mean?”

“Well,” Susie began, thinking carefully again. “It’s a word usually directed at a woman who looks something like me.”

“I’ve never seen any woman who looks like you.”

“Yeah, well, they’re out there,” Susie explained. “And I don’t know, Miriam…most of the time I don’t care that some people might look at me strangely for wearing what I want. Hell, it’s a small price to pay compared to the alternative. But just once, I wanted to see what it would be like to be around others like me. Or, at least, who I thought were like me. That’s another story…”

“How did you even find out about that place?”

“It’s Greenwich Village, word gets around.” Thinking about explaining all this made her tired, but Miriam was clearly concerned. “If I’m going to tell you this, it’s got to be from the beginning, and I really would like to sit on the bed to do that.”

“Oh,” Miriam said. “Of course.”

Susie lowered the bed and changed out of her clothes into one of the loose tee shirts she reserved for sleeping. She couldn’t stop herself from letting out a long sigh as she lay down, propping herself up against her pillow. It felt like ages since she had last been on a surface that wasn’t cold and hard.

Miriam kicked off her shoes and sat down next to her.

“It’s comfortable,” Miriam said.

“It’s a bed. What did you expect?”

“It’s just not…never mind.” A rich girl through and through.

“So, the beginning…” Susie said.

_God, what am I doing?_

“I heard about this place from a woman who came by the Gaslight about a week ago. She was wearing these men’s slacks and gave me a nod when she saw me. She told me there was a bar she thought I’d be interested in and where to find it. She didn’t say anything else about it, but I knew exactly what she was talking about.”

“Which was _what_?” Miriam chimed in. “You still haven’t told me very much except that apparently this place is full of women in pants.”

“I’m getting to it! Anyway – she got a cup of coffee and kept looking over at me every time I passed her by. She barely paid any attention to any of the acts who were performing, which was weird.”

“It sounds like she liked you!” Miriam giggled.

“Yeah, well, I had no reason to like her, a complete stranger, even if she had given me some interesting information. I did my best to ignore her.”

“So cold,” Miriam teased.

“She was a stranger!” Susie continued. “She looked like she was trying to conspire with me about something, though what exactly I wasn’t sure.”

“She definitely liked you.”

Susie decided not to respond this time. “So, I went to the place she told me about on my night off. I paced back and forth in front of it a few times before actually going in. I knew what kind of things could happen in these places, but I took a chance. I should have learned by now that taking certain chances isn’t a good idea, but I thought if I did it just this once nothing would happen.”

“You’re still being vague,” Miriam interjected.

“Just shut up and listen! I’m getting to it!”

“That’s what you keep saying, and yet –”

“You know this is hard for me, right?”

Susie groaned, then continued.

“So I finally worked up the nerve to walk in. I’d known about places like this, but seeing it was something else. I’ve never been to a place so full of women clinging to each other or hanging around in groups, other than the tittering housewives you sometimes see at the grocery store.”

“Hey, I was one of those housewives, once!”

Susie didn’t say anything to that, and instead continued, “There was an empty stool at the bar, so I sat down and ordered a drink. A woman next to me turned and complimented me on my jacket and we started talking.”

_“Nice jacket,” the woman had said. “I’m Millie.”_

_“Susie,” she had said._

_“Nice to meet you, Susie…I’ve never seen you around here before.”_

“It was the most cordial anyone has been to me in a long time,” Susie continued.

“Well, you do look great in that blazer we bought before Shy’s tour,” Miriam said. “She was right to compliment you. You look better in that suit than my father ever has in any of his. Or Joel, for that matter.”

“That last one’s not exactly a compliment.”

Susie didn’t say what she was really thinking, which was that there were women in this bar who looked better in suits that she did. Well, on second thought, it wasn’t so much that they looked better than her, but that they looked different. They looked more like men. That had never been her own goal and never would be – even if some people from outside the Village though otherwise – but she did wonder if they could be seen as men and not be given the trouble that she often was.

“We talked for a while, until this gigantic woman in a blue suit came over and asked me what I was doing,” Susie continued.

_“Hey! You trying to steal my femme?” the butch pushed Susie into the bar behind her. Millie, who had leaned in close to Susie speak to her, pulled away quickly._

_“What the fuck’s your problem?” Susie exclaimed. “We were just talking!”_

_“That’s what they all say,” the butch continued. “I saw how you two were huddled up real close like I wouldn’t see.” She turned to Millie, then. “Why were you makin’ eyes like that to some Saturday night butch who’s never hung around here before?”_

_“I’m a_ what _, now?” Susie asked confusedly. She had never heard the term before, even though she had heard a lot of other phrases get thrown around Greenwich Village. But she could take a guess at what it meant, and she didn’t think she liked the implication._

_“Joey,” another voice said suddenly. “Relax. I invited her here.” Susie turned towards the voice. It was the woman who had come to the Gaslight. The woman placed a hand on Joey’s shoulder. “She’s a friend.”_

“What was she upset about?” Miriam asked.

“She thought I was trying to steal her woman,” Susie said. “Like I have time for that shit.”

Miriam chuckled, then suddenly her expression changed into the same one you see in a cartoon when a lightbulb lights up above someone’s head. She said nothing.

“She was mad, but then the woman who had talked to me at the Gaslight – Frances – came over and somehow defused the situation. She told this other woman – they called her Joey – that I was a friend she invited there. It wasn’t exactly true, but Joey didn’t call her bluff. Joey and Millie walked off and Frances told me to come to the back room of the bar with her.”

“Ooh! Mysterious!”

_“Come on,” the woman said. Susie grabbed what was left of her drink and followed._

_“I’ve seen you. I know you’re not just some Saturday night butch,” she said. “I’m Frances, by the way.”_

“Part of me wondered if I actually wanted to go this back room,” Susie chortled. “I wondered for a second if this was a seedier place than I had thought, but it wasn’t. Hidden in the back of the bar was another room for dancing. Women were in pairs while someone onstage sang ‘Blue Moon’ or some other romantic shit.”

_She knew that places like this existed, but seeing the goings-on for the first time was another story. She stopped in her tracks and took in the surroundings; the elegant movements of the drag queen onstage, lit from above like Marlene Dietrich; the women who filled the dance floor, swaying in each other’s arms; more of them still sitting at tables near the walls, nobody questioning who they were, just happily socialising; and most importantly – no men to be seen._

_“You’re catching flies,” Frances teased and Susie closed her mouth, a little embarrassed to have lowered her guard. Frances led her by the elbow. “Let’s go sit with my pals.”_

Miriam seemed to have begun listening more intently as Susie continued.

“Frances led me over to a table where her friends were sitting. One of the women in dresses was sitting on another woman’s knee. After Frances introduced to me to all of them, they asked me where I worked.”

_“Are you one of her friends from the meat plant?” One of the other butches asked her._

_“Or do you work on the loading dock like Carol?” another asked before she could answer._

_“No,” Susie finally said. “I work at the Gaslight Café.” Her job at the Gaslight wasn’t the only thing she did, but she was hesitant to discuss that part of her work with this crowd just yet, precisely because it was the most important to her._

_“Frances’ plant actually has great benefits, I bet she could get you in, easy,” the woman replied. “Right?”_

_Frances shrugged. “If you wanted.”_

_“Thanks,” Susie said. “But I’m not looking for a new job. I’m not the factory type.”_

_“Too bad,” Frances said. “It’s an honest living.”_

_“There’s other ways to make an honest living,” Susie said, sitting back in her chair._

_“Enough of this!” the femme sitting on a butch’s knee exclaimed. “This could lead to politics, and you know how I feel about that.”_

Miriam seemed surprised. “You didn’t tell them about me?”

“Are you kidding? That would’ve made things way too complicated,” Susie said.

“I could have gotten some more fans,” Miriam said.

“And enemies. I could’ve, too. I wasn’t going to take any chance that something would get out and ruin things for us. Though I know now that I was taking way too much of a chance as it is.”

“I still don’t see what went wrong,” Miriam said.

“I’m getting there. The performance onstage ended and someone got the jukebox going. One of the women hopped up from her chair. Sally was her name. Nobody wanted to dance with her, so she made me volunteer.”

“Now _that_ I wish I’d seen!” Miriam exclaimed.

_“So, uh…you’re not going to get in trouble for this?” Susie asked as Sally dragged her by the hand to the dance floor._

_“What kind of trouble?” Sally asked, though Susie was surprised she didn’t know what Susie meant._

_“You know… your butch.”_

_“If she doesn’t like it, she should consider dancing with me next time I ask,” said Sally._

_“Seriously, are they all possessive like that? I got hounded earlier just for talking to somebody.”_

_“Well,” Sally said, thinking. “Not everyone. But some of them, they can talk about us femmes like we’re meat.”_

_“Geez,” Susie said. “I thought out here, without the typical men around here, we could be free from that bullshit.”_

_“You’d think…But let’s forget about that. How are you liking your first time here?”_

_“It’s been…enlightening.”_

_Sally laughed. “I always feel free when I’m here. It’s not a perfect place, but it’s the best I’ve got.”_

“Did you feel free?” Miriam asked.

“I thought I would,” Susie said. “I thought that world was made for someone like me more than the rest of the world. I’ll admit, it’s nice to be around other women who don’t look like some model out of Harper’s Bazaar, or whatever. But the people in there, I didn’t feel the same as them. I don’t walk around thinking we need everyone to be the same, just look at you and me, but I’m not looking for the same things as they are. I realized something in there, Miriam, and that was that their world is nice to visit, but I’m not missing anything in my life by not going there. I don’t need a woman to dance with or walk home. I don’t want to work in a factory, even if I could have a bunch of friends there. I don’t want to be some nobody dock worker who cashes the checks every payday and has the same routine. My family came from that life and I don’t want to stay there. Just because I’m different doesn’t mean that that’s the only option for me.”

“Wow,” Miriam said.

“That quiet domestic life with a partner and the same regular thing is fine for some people, but it’s not what I want. I’ve got everything I need with what we’re doing,” Susie continued. “Nothing’s ever felt as right as working with you has.”

Miriam smiled, wrapped her arm around Susie and hugged her close. There had been times when Susie would have pulled away, but she didn’t do that now.

“I guess I might as well say what happened next,” Susie sighed. “Sally and I danced, and it actually was _fun_ once I got into it. Suddenly I was grateful for the lessons my mother forced on my sister and me, which is something I never thought I’d say.”

_“You’re pretty good at this,” Sally said. “I thought it would be hard to dance with someone shorter than me, but it’s OK.”_

_Susie was about to say something clever in response when the music abruptly stopped._

_“Aww!!!” the crowd moaned in disappointment._

_“Shit!” Sally muttered._

_Susie turned towards the noise that was coming from the doorway in time to see the police officers storm in._

_“Quick! We’ll hide in the washrooms,” Sally said. She grabbed Susie’s hand and tried to push through the crowd towards the back of the hall, but they didn’t make it far before Susie felt someone wrench her backwards._

_“Hey!” she exclaimed, trying to pull herself free. “Let go of me!”_

_“Shut up, bulldagger!”_

_The police officer dragged her out of the club while another took hold of Sally and took her in the same direction. Susie caught a glimpse of the paddy wagon._

_Not today, she thought._

_The officer tried to slip handcuffs on her, but she resisted and tried to fight him again, elbowing him in the stomach to loosen the officer’s grip on her._

_“Susie, don’t!” Sally exclaimed. But Susie Myerson doesn’t go down without a fight. She thought she was close to getting away when she felt a hard impact in her eye that sent her into the pavement. The brim of her hat took some of the impact, but not much. The officer hoisted her up, partly by the chain around her neck. It hurt, but she kept fighting as they pulled her to the paddy wagon, didn’t stop trying to resist until she was locked inside._

Miriam listened in silence, remembering the picture in the paper. She thought about how it depicted what Susie described, but also left many of the painful details out of the story.

“It was like whiplash going inside that paddy wagon, Miriam. In the club, everyone was happy, dancing and talking and shouting. But inside that truck, it was like death. Nobody spoke, hell, they barely looked at each other. It was like everyone was ashamed of who they were and what they’d done, even the ones who acted proud in the club. And all for what? I’ll tell you that much, there was no good reason for any of it, what those cops were doing.”

_Susie could feel every bump in the road on the ride to the jail, braced herself against the walls of the truck when it made a turn. She wanted to say something in her anger, but she knew that anything she said wouldn’t be anything new to them. Even in the shame that cloaked where they sat, she could see in the women’s eyes that nothing about this was something they hadn’t experienced before. It made her sick. She understood why Sally had told her not to fight. But why did this all have to be so inevitable?_

_Susie looked around for some way to escape when the doors to the paddy wagon finally opened, it was in her nature, but there was nowhere else to go but where the officers took her._

_“Please present your identification,” one officer said._

_“I haven’t got any with me,” Susie said gruffly._

_“You sure you want to be difficult about it?”_

_“If telling you the truth is being difficult, then sure.” Susie begrudgingly reached into her pocket to try to prove that she was telling the truth, awkward as it was with the handcuffs, but the officers didn’t wait for her to do it herself. They searched her every pocket, not bothering to be delicate about it. When they found out she was telling the truth, she was briskly brought inside the police station to the jail cell._

“I don’t know how long we were in there,” Susie said. “All night, obviously, but it could have been days, the way it felt. And the things they did in there…”

_They sat quietly in the cells. The women knew some people who could bail them out, they just had to wait. At one point an officer came to the cell and told Sally to come with him. He took her to another room and a few minutes later Susie heard her screaming, telling someone to stop._

“I’m not afraid of much, Miriam,” Susie said. “But for the rest of the time I was there, I was so scared they’d pick me next.”

“But they didn’t.” Midge said, then realized she shouldn’t have assumed. “Did they?”

“No,” Susie said. “Thank god.”

Susie swallowed before finishing. “So that’s the tale. You happy now?”

Miriam pulled Susie closer. “I’m glad you told me. Susie, I’m so sorry that this happened to you. But why didn’t you call me?”

“I figured someone from the Gaslight could come for me. I’d figure out who to call. I didn’t want to call you. You’re not supposed to be the one to help me. But I never got a chance. Those cops took their sweet time letting the others from the club make their phone call. They were just starting to let each of them go one by one when you came.”

“Wow.”

“It’s amazing what they think they can get away with when they don’t think much of people. I was one of the lucky ones in this whole affair.”

“Right…”

“Some manager I am, huh?”

“A little reckless, maybe. But still the best in the business.”

Susie looked up. “But not as good as the best comedian in the business.”

“Do you want me to disagree with that?” Midge teased.

“Not really.”

Miriam laughed.

“Hey, I’m not the one who’s supposed to make the jokes around here!”

“You could, though. You’re quite funny.”

“I’ve changed careers enough times already. Besides, I need to keep you in line.”

“If you quit I could just call up Reggie…”

“Like fuck you won’t!”

“There she is!” Miriam said, before going back to a more serious tone. “I know you always want to be strong, Susie, but you don’t always have to be with me. I’m never going to let anyone make you feel ashamed of who you are. I promise.”

“Well, good luck getting the rest of the world to promise that.”

“One day, maybe – ”

“But don’t worry, Miriam. It’s the world I don’t like, not me.”

“Promise?”

“Yeah, whatever. Promise. Now, if you don’t mind, I’d like to get some sleep.”

“Of course,” said Midge. “And when you wake up, I’ll have breakfast ready for you.”

 _God_ , thought Susie, _I don’t deserve you, Miriam. But I’m glad I’ve got you_.

Midge waited until Susie was asleep, then carefully shifted her from her position against Midge’s shoulder to the pillows. Then Miriam carefully got up from the bed and searched the cupboards for something she could turn into a decent meal.

As she cooked, she thought about everything that Susie had told her about the terrible night she had had. She thought that maybe, if things were different, that world that Susie had visited in that nightclub could have given her a nice life. Miriam knew that, if not for the unusual circumstances that had brought her and Susie together, they never would have been friends, let alone met. But she was glad they had.

When Susie woke up, Miriam was standing and looking out the window as New Yorkers’ feet passed back and forth along the sidewalk.

“You’re still here?” Susie mumbled groggily.

“Of course I am,” Midge said simply and quietly. “I was keeping your breakfast warm.” She glanced at the clock “Well, I guess it’s more like lunch now.”

Susie got up from the bed and dragged her small table over next to her chair and sat down while Miriam brought over her plate and fork.

“Great service,” Susie said, half-jokingly. Miriam curtsied.

“Anything for you, milady,” she said.

“Now _that’s_ some joke,” Susie said.

Miriam sat with Susie while she ate, telling stories about the antics her parents had been up to, new hats she had been thinking of buying, the gossip she had picked up at her fitness classes. Not all of it was interesting to Susie, but she was glad Miriam had stayed with her. And because of that, Susie knew that, obvious problems aside, she was exactly where she wanted to be.

**Author's Note:**

> I got kind of emotional in the early days of writing this story, so I hope that translated onto the page. I just wanted to give a little postscript to say that I mean no offense or derision against anyone who does, or has ever, found comfort in lesbian spaces. I'm not trying to say they are bad, this is just my interpretation of Susie's character.


End file.
